Frederick Douglass Criticizes Christian Support of Separating Families

Since Frederick Douglass “is an example of somebody who’s done an amazing job and is getting recognized more and more,”[i] let’s hear what he has to say about families being torn apart by governmental policy. What’s his attitude about American Christians who actively promote these traumatic policies? What about those who passively and silently watch their neighbors suffer?

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The following is an abridgment of the appendix found at the conclusion of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave.

In the words of Frederick Douglass

“I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ.”

“Between the Christianity of this land, and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest, possible difference–so wide, that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy, is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked. To be the friend of the one, is of necessity to be the enemy of the other. . . Indeed, I can see no reason, but the most deceitful one, for calling the religion of this land Christianity. I look upon it as the climax of all misnomers, the boldest of all frauds, and the grossest of all libels. . .

“I am filled with unutterable loathing when I contemplate the religious pomp and show, together with the horrible inconsistencies, which everywhere surround me.

“He who is the religious advocate of marriage robs whole millions of its sacred influence. . . The warm defender of the sacredness of the family relation is the same that scatters whole families – sundering [i.e.: separating, severing by violence] husbands and wives, parents and children, sisters and brothers, leaving the hut vacant, and the hearth desolate.

“The overwhelming mass of professed Christians in America. . . strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel. . . They attend with Pharisaical strictness to the outward forms of religion, and at the same time neglect the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith. They are always ready to sacrifice, but seldom to show mercy. They are they who are represented as professing to love God whom they have not seen, whilst they hate their brother whom they have seen.

“They love the heathen [refugees] on the other side of the globe. They can pray for him, pay money to have the Bible put into his hand, and missionaries to instruct him; while they despise and totally neglect the heathen [asylum seekers and immigrants] at their own doors.”

“Here we have religion and robbery the allies of each other–devils dressed in angels’ robes, and hell presenting the semblance of paradise.”